


Return

by xel



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-15 04:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11798502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xel/pseuds/xel
Summary: Kima comes back, and has always promised to come back; perhaps that is enough.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This'll probably turn into a series of short stories about these two. I love them a lot? And will probably continue to write them, even if my characterization is wildly inaccurate....

Kima is, undeniably, a restless soul. Allura has know this about the woman for almost as long at the two have _actually_ known one another.

  
The spirit and the spunk and the moving, always moving, smirking, action upon action; it all makes Kima so remarkably lovely ... and so terrifyingly dangerous to love.

Lady Kima of Vord, living folk hero, paladin of the Platinum Dragon, Bahamut, ticking time bomb for heartache.

Kima does not remember, but she has died before.

 

* * *

  

Allura meets her halfling at the front door of her lodging and picks the woman up, in one breathless moment their lips meet and Kima weighs a hearty sum dressed to the heavens in plate armor but Allura would rather crush every vertebrae in her spine than set the lady down before she's been properly kissed.

"I've missed you," she tells Kima, eventually, and lets her free.

Kima is grinning ear to ear. She looks, as she always looks upon return from missions, like she has not slept well in months, like she has taken more than her share of blows in battle (there's a cut there, right through her left eyebrow that, when healed, will be just another scar among the more prominent ones which surround it).

"It's barely been a fortnight, Allie," Kima chuckles, but takes her hand anyway, places a kiss on her knuckles, and leads her inside.

 

* * *

 

Later that night they sit across from one another, sipping tea and talking (Kima is recounting her time with Vox Machina; always an enticing tale, trouble seems to follow them like a hex). These are the moments Allura lives for.

Her magic moves dishes and cups behind her and Kima watches them, mesmerized, for a moment in a spell of silence between conversation. And Allura watches Kima, watches her closely and with reverence and with warring emotions of love and disdain for who she is. How she keeps going out there and may one day not return.

"Allie," Kima says suddenly, seeming to pick up on her thoughts; Allura realizes her mage's hand has cracked a dish, "I love you. You don't have to worry so much."  
  
"I love you, too," Allura tells her, and smiles despite it all ... but of course she has to worry. Who else will?


	2. Chapter 2

Allura watches Kima in silence as the smaller woman paces; back and forth and back again. Hands clasped behind her back, head skyward, replaying, always replaying the same thing; Kima is caught up in her memories.

Flowers grow in the cracks of her armor, and Kima has never even realized it.

Allura grasps Kima's hand as she passes by her again, tugs lightly until the lady stumbles and lands in her lap.

"You're making me nervous," says Allura and smiles.

"Enjoy the butterflies," Kima grins. She brings her hand to Allura's face and runs her fingers down the pale skin of her cheek. "You are so beautiful..." Kima drifts. "I don't deserve this." There is an odd and sickening honesty behind the words.

Allura has heard the tone before.

During her death ritual, Drake, Allura and the others offering what they could, what they shouldn't.

_"Anything, anything, I'll give you anything - just give her back to us."_

_A shuttered breath, fluttered lashes, a deep, profound sadness behind Kima's eyes as the light drifted back._

_"You shouldn't have done this; I don't deserve this." Kima says, running her fingers over her face, the scars the only reminder of what had happened._

_"Shut up, Kima," says Drake, and hugs her. Allura, hands still glowing arcane blue, is ramrod steeled by disbelief, tears are flowing but there's no sound, no gasps, stutters, proclamations - just horrified, staunch silence and stagnation._

"Don't say that," Allura tells her, quietly. "You are not the martyr. I won't allow it."

Kima grins, goofy and small and a little sheepish.

"No," she says, "no, you won't." Satisfied, Allura stands, laces her fingers in Kima's and smiles. 

"There is a wedding to attend," she says.


End file.
